Pallet trucks can be hand or power driven and are the most common materials handling vehicles in use today. These trucks are used in a wide variety of businesses involved in product manufacturing, distribution, retailing—generally any business where large products or large packages of products need to be moved around a facility. While larger materials handling vehicles are also commonly used in many of these facilities, in smaller facilities, such as grocery and convenience retail stores, pallet trucks that are manually pulled and pushed, referred to as hand pallet trucks or carts, and powered versions of hand pallet trucks may be all that is available.
A primary purpose for pallet trucks as the name implies, is to enable people to move heavy, palletized product loads over relatively short distances. For example, they are used to load and unload pallets from semitrailers, to move heavy loads around a facility, to transport products to retail sales floors, to support products while they are placed on shelves for display and similar tasks. Accordingly, pallet trucks help businesses function and facilitate their operations.